


Is There Room For One More Son

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [30]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Gen, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard + Patrick Sheppard, <i>Nothing I do is good enough for you / Crucify myself / Every day / And my heart is sick of being in chains"</i> (Tori Amos)</p><p>John ends where he begun, at Sheppard Industries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is There Room For One More Son

Dave didn’t know exactly what had happened to the Space Monkeys, but he could read between the lines well enough, between Jennifer being sent to rehab and the funeral held in town for the Mckay and Miller families. Rumor had it Teyla was carrying on with a solo career, and Ronon had been scooped up by a ska band. After the funerals, Jennifer and Rodney skipped town, for who knew what, who knew where.  
  
Dave could hardly bear to look at John when he came into their father’s office to beg for a job. Said he’d go back to school, work hard. He’d sold all his guitars and equipment and burned all his sheet music. He was home for good. He’d straighten up and fly right.  
  
“Better not be any more flying from you, son,” Patrick Sheppard had said. “To the mail room with you.”  
  
And John nodded, ducked his head, and went to work.  
  
Dave had spent every day since opening John’s letter till the day the oncologist officially announced he was in remission dreading the news, that John was dying, John was dead. He wasn’t sure what he’d been worried about then, because John now looked - horrible. Pale. Miserable. Except he hid his misery behind his bright Sheppard smile. He had the other two kids who worked the mail room eating out of his hand and trailing after him like worshipful ducklings. He entertained them with stories about life in the mail room when he was in high school and showed them all the tricks for sorting the mail more efficiently, and Dave was pretty sure no one else knew just how miserable John was.  
  
But John worked hard, and he enrolled in the next semester of school, paying his way himself since he’d forfeited his scholarship to go on the road with the band.  
  
Dave didn’t ask what the legal implications were of the band breaking up after only producing one album. Dave never listened to the album anywhere John could hear.  
  
Dave also never heard John listening to music.  
  
Once a week, Dad called John into his office for a weekly report of how he was doing in the mail room, how he was doing in school, how he was doing rooming with Dave again. John’s answers were textbook perfect, but Dave could see the way Dad’s eyes narrowed, the way he was searching for a kink in John’s armor.  
  
John had played the perfect son once before, for several years, and Dad doubted John’s sincerity at it this time around. Dave didn’t blame him, because he doubted John’s performance too, although for very different reasons.  
  
Dave was impressed at human obliviousness and the workings of human psychology, the way the two kids in the mail room - Max and Greg - didn’t connect John Sheppard, the boss’s son, with John Sheppard, the guitar player from the Space Monkeys. Still, when he headed down to the mail room to see if John wanted to go for lunch and caught Max and Greg hunkered over Greg’s phone, watching a YouTube clip of Teyla singing an acoustic, stripped-down version of the Space Monkeys song Fact Fiction, he came up short.  
  
John was standing a short distance away, flipping through piles of mail and sorting them dexterously, seemingly oblivious but for the tension in his shoulders.  
  
“Hey John,” Max said, “come check this out! This song is super cool. Greg’s older brother says he went to high school with Teyla. Did you go to high school with Teyla?”  
  
“We were on the track team together.” John didn’t make any move to come check out the video, though.  
  
“Wow! Was she super nice?”  
  
“Teyla’s a very nice person,” John said.  
  
Greg sighed dreamily. “She’s super hot. And now she’s a rock star. Would you be a rock star if you could, John?”  
  
“No,” John said, and a lump rose in Dave’s throat. “I don’t think that kind of thing is for me.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you’d have to play a musical instrument anyway,” Max said. “That’s so cool, though. We went to the same high school as a rock star!”  
  
John noticed Dave, then, and shadows crossed his face before he smiled and said, “Hey, lunch?”  
  
Dave supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when Dad asked Dave to stay behind after John’s next weekly check-in (which was separate from John’s appearance at Sunday dinner with Dave and sometimes Kathy).  
  
“Do you think he’s sincere?” Dad asked. “That he’s really committed to his family?”

“I think,” Dave said carefully, “that John has always been committed to this family, but for him that’s not the same thing as being committed to the company.”  
  
Dad steepled his hands on the desk. “You think he learned his lesson about the foolhardiness of music?”  
  
“As a career. But not as a hobby.”  
  
Dad shook his head. “John’s like an addict when it comes to music. It consumes his life. He’s like an alcoholic - even a drop is too much.”  
  
“Music makes John happy,” Dave said.  
  
“Nonsense. Did you see how miserable he was when he came home?”  
  
“Because the band broke up, not because of music.”  
  
“You’ve always defended your brother, David.” Dad raised his eyebrows, and Dave swallowed. Dad was breaking out the full names. “You lied to me about the band for him. Is there anything else I need to know?”  
  
“John’s miserable,” Dave said. “Because he misses playing.”  
  
“Out of the question. You saw how quickly he went from dabbling to dropping out of school and abandoning his family.”  
  
“Maybe,” Dave said, “if you didn’t take an all-or-nothing approach to John and his music, he wouldn’t go to extremes over it. Let him play for fun.”  
  
“He’s free to play if he chooses.”  
  
“It’s not much of a choice if you disown him and kick him out every time he does it.”  
  
Dad said, “He made his choice then, and he’s making his choice now.”  
  
Dave threw his hands up. “Do you really want to lose John for good? I don’t just mean not talking to him and not sending him Christmas cards when he’s on tour. I mean for good.”  
  
“David -”  
  
“I mean dead.”  
  
“That’s a little bit extreme, don’t you think?”  
  
“John almost died this past year,” Dave said, and okay, it was a bit of an exaggeration, except it wasn’t, because John was supposed to be taking it easy during chemo, not singing his heart out on stage every other night.  
  
“Did he attempt suicide? Because that’s melodramatic, even for your brother.”  
  
John would kill Dave when he found out, but it’d be worth it. “John had cancer.”  
  
The c-word was always enough to stop Patrick Sheppard in his tracks. “What?”  
  
“Same as Mom. The doctors caught it early, and he’s in remission now -”  
  
“Impossible!”  
  
But Dave saw Dad’s gaze go distant as he reviewed everything he knew about John over the past six months, from the regular updates Betty would bring him.  
  
“When he buzzed his hair. That was for chemo.”  
  
Dave nodded.  
  
“You knew? And you didn’t tell me?”  
  
“You disowned him!”  
  
“I’m still his father!”  
  
“Then act like it!” Dave stopped short, horrified. He was yelling at his father.  
  
A muscle twitched in Dad’s jaw.  
  
Dave fled.  
  
He confessed to John when John got home, and he cringed, waiting for the anger, the accusations, but John just shrugged and sighed.  
  
“I guess I should have told him once I was in remission.” John smiled and clapped Dave on the shoulder. “Thanks for always sticking up for me. I’m sorry I always put you in between me and Dad.”  
  
“You’re my little brother,” Dave said. “I’m supposed to stick up for you.”  
  
John looked like he was going to say more, but then the doorbell rang.  
  
“You expecting anyone?” John asked.  
  
Dave shook his head, but he went and pulled open the door.  
  
And froze, because Dad was standing on the doorstep, looking very uncomfortable.  
  
“Dad?”  
  
“Hey, Dave.”  
  
John shouldered past Dave, putting himself between Dave and Dad. “Look, it’s not his fault, I asked him to keep the whole thing quiet, and he was just respecting my medical privacy -”  
  
Dad held up a guitar case. “This was your mother’s.”  
  
John blinked. “What -?”  
  
“She preferred playing the piano, so she rarely bothered with this, and it’s been gathering dust in the back of my closet for - a long time.” Dad thrust the guitar case at John. “I want you to have it.”  
  
John accepted the guitar case with shaking hands. “Dad -”  
  
“Enjoy, son.” Dad spun on his heel and walked away.  
  
John sank to his knees, opened the guitar case, and he and Dave stared at the guitar.  
  
“Did you know Mom played?” John asked, running a hand over the gleaming pale wood.  
  
“No,” Dave said.  
  
“I wonder,” John said, “if that’s why Dad always hated when I played. Because it reminded him of Mom.”  
  
“You always looked more like her than I did.” Dave nudged John gently with the toe of his shoe. “But hey. You can play music again.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said softly. “Music.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from All These Things That I've Done by The Killers
> 
> Song credit:  
> Fact Fiction - Mads Langer


End file.
